Sing to the Lord a Hillsong

In my busy New York internship life, it’s difficult to find time to pencil in some fun between my workplace obligations of sexual harassment and Xeroxing Xeroxes so that colleagues can Xerox my Xeroxes of Xeroxes and promptly lose them. When I do get a break from having my knees massaged and trying not to vomit, I then find it difficult to find affordable fun. As I’m sure you know, New York is expensive. The temptation is to buy several industrial-sized bottles of wine that taste like the loose change that has collected at the bottom of my purse and lock myself in my room, but even this loses its appeal after the first several times. I say “loses its appeal” when actually I mean I can’t afford it.

My British neshama suggests going to museums. After all, the National Gallery (which is free) had become my London free toilet. (One of my hobbies is establishing toilets around cities the way some nations establish colonies.) However, in these United States most museums are actually quite expensive. I did manage to find something free called the “Museum of Biblical Art.” But after accidentally posting this picture on their giant TV screen through the wonders of social media:

…I was disappointed that the “Museum of Biblical Art” turned out to be the “One Room of Artistically Rendered Scrolls of Esther.” I had hoped for some meaty paintings. A Thomas ramming his hand into Jesus’ side the way I like to poke packages of ground beef at the supermarket. A panicked, bound Isaac asking Abraham, “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, DAD?” Instead I got a handful of mediocre Hebrew calligraphy.

So what does one do in New York for fun when one is poor?

One can go to church.

It’s free, and you’re guaranteed some kind of a show. In fact, the more you go the easier it is to spot a disaster. Usually my free-time trips to church involve a visit to a charismatic venue, but after joining the serving team at an Anglo-Catholic parish I have invented a new game called “Spot the Me,” in which I visit high churches and look for the server who cannot go two minutes without touching her nose, rolling her ankles, or accidentally doing “The Sprinkler” when her legs get caught in her cassock. So far I appear the be the only me.

However, the more I treat churches like a sporting event...

(or indeed sports like a church—see the Mets prayer circle)

…the more I notice the international phenomenon of the Weeping Australian, found in any denomination of church that refers to God as “awesome” in the Californian sense.

You’ve probably come across the Weeping Australian before if you’ve ever been to a charismatic church. He’s the teaching pastor who is so overwhelmed that you won’t let his mate Jesus Christ into your heart that he has to wipe away tears into the tiny vest he wears paired with his skinny jeans. What’s jarring about the Weeping Australian is that you’re used to seeing the Australian as either perpetually friendly or perpetually stabby/drunk, and yet here he is choking back a sob as he leads you in a round of applause for Jesus Christ, who was so kind as to grace us with His presence at this club tonight. His eyes are so overwhelmed with emotion that they are forced shut as he joins the band onstage to repeat the chorus for the 563rd time, in case God didn’t know how swell He is the first 562 times we let Him know.

My favorite Weeping Australian story occurred just last week. In a nightclub packed with young and lost New Yorkers, the WA invited us to close our eyes. Which was, of course, my cue to keep mine open. Experience told me that this was my favorite part—the Weeping Australian would stress to us the need to let Jesus back into our hearts as though JC were crying and hanging out on a porch in the rain waiting to be let inside. Usually the long closed-eyes ramble would increase in urgency, and when panic about how badly we need Jesus reached a climax the WA would invite us to put up our hands if we felt Jesus had been locked out for long enough and we wanted to let the poor man back in. With eyes closed, usually a hefty majority would put their hands up. However, on this particular Sunday at this particular service, I noticed that something like 10 people put their hands up. The Weeping Australian soon became the Panicked Australian. Over and over again he repeated the call to put your hand up if you wanted to vote for Jesus, and still no one else put their hand up. Realizing that this was as good as it was going to get, he then started “ooooing” and “aaaahing” at the sheer number of people who were recommitting themselves to Christ at this service. “Wow,” he told the temporarily blinded audience, “there are just SO many hands. This is really incredible.” Still the same 10 or so were not joined by more hands. “Wow…this is just so inspiring. So overwhelming.” Then, “Don’t open your eyes, keep them closed. This really is awesome, I wish you could see how many people want to recognize that Jesus Christ died for them." The music swells, the lights dance, and still no additional hands go up. "Just awesome, awesome. Amazing. …Okay, you can put your hands down…and open your eyes now.” It was, quite honestly, the most convincing argument I’ve ever witnessed that religion is complete crap.

And it’s not just Hillsong, which started in Australia and thus understandably has a heavy proportion of Australian team members. No, the Australians are everywhere in the evangelical world. As I sit through “Four Minutes of Fellowship” and sip a glass of water that a hot man in a tight t-shirt brought me on a silver tray, I reflect on the sheer number of Weeping Australians and can only assume that evangelism is a front for Australian imperialism. Secretly, the Australians are here to take over America through what they call “planting” these things they call “churches.” All I can say is, “LEAVE US BE! TAKE YOUR OUTBACK STEAKHOUSES AND BE GONE WITH YOU!”

I often like to imagine what it must be like for this never-ending stream of Weeping Australian pastors to come through US Customs and Border Control. The border control officer would subject the W.A. to a series of questions, during which the W.A. would silently and seamlessly cue a previously hidden band to start picking up their instruments behind him. Their seemingly nonsensical plucking and fiddling would ever so gradually form into an increasingly loud and coherent return to an evangelical power ballad. The pastor would get more frantic and out of breath and weepy with each answer, “16 Main Street.” “Four months!” “[*sniff*] for business!! [*choked sob*]” And still the music would grow in the background.

Finally the customs officer would say, “Anything to declare?” And the W.A. would respond by bellowing, “ONLY THE LOVE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED!” as he bursts into tears and drops the mic that had seemed to materialize from nowhere, while the band erupts with yet another deafening refrain from Hillsong’s “I Will Rise."

Crap. I think I need to find a new free hobby besides churching.

The Brunch, Church, and My Social Anxiety

Some days I get really bored of meditating upon new things to which my body odor can be likened (today’s simile: a stale fortune cookie) and going for long sobbing sessions drives. Because these things are, of course, how one occupies one’s time (in addition to a never-ending stream of pointless job applications) when one is unemployed.

In an effort to get me out of the house and, more importantly, out of the dirty pajamas I call my mope rags, my mother suggested signing up for a class. Her reasoning is that any normal person would make friends. And she’s right, but unfortunately I’m not a normal person. I would say that I’ve forgotten how to make friends and socialize, but that would imply that I knew how at one point.

See, I’ve signed up for this theology class a local church. Before our lecture and discussion, we are expected to have dinner with each other in the parish hall, a dinner which, if you know anything about me, is complete agony. I honestly cannot remember how I have ever managed to make friends, and indeed sitting through these weekly dinners that are like a Greatest Hits album of my gaffes has made me seriously wonder whether the people I think are my friends are, in fact, imaginary.

I wish I knew how to show these people how desperately I’d love for them to tell me about their day, using a method that does not involve asking accidentally personal questions about their work in a voice several octaves higher than my actual speaking voice. I try to fill our many awkward silences with a friendly smile to show how open I am, but instead I smile the near-hysterical forced smile of someone who has just farted in polite company and is hoping to God that no one heard it. When conversation has been paired away from me, I drink obscene amounts of water simply so I have something to do with my hands. Other times I give up and pick a spot on the wall, stare at it with a forced serene expression on my face, and wonder why this is supposed to be better than sitting at home in my underpants and crying.

The worst is when one of the priests comes to the table, because they use a Scream movie entrance rather than a Jaws approach. That is to say, none of them wear clerical gear, so you don’t notice them slowly but surely making their way towards your table, which would allow you to prepare for their arrival.  Instead you casually look to your left, jump about five feet in the air, let slip an expletive, and say hello to the priest that was definitely not sitting next to you just a second ago. But why would you need warning for a priest anyway?

Well, only a minute before you were treading water in a sea of people with actual social skills, and then all of the sudden without warning the priest, who as a priest is naturally the only other person in the room whose social ineptitude can even begin to compare to yours, comes up and starts talking to you. There is at least some hope of normalcy when I talk with the other people, but now suddenly the conversation becomes the verbal equivalent of two fat people trying to come through a doorway at the same time.

If dinner isn’t alienating enough, the post-lecture discussion does a great job of making me feel more foreign than I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m not entirely sure which country I think I’m from, but I think we can safely assume no one has heard of it. It’s not just my social awkwardness, it’s also the content: they talk about heaven as social justice and replace God with a vague “higher power,” apparently everyone’s been canonized, and we listen to the Gospel according to Maya Angelou. It’s all so foreign to me that I would have an easier time if they instead talked about Malian butt hygiene.

I could have given up socially, but I’m stubborn. Pioneer spirit, American can-do attitude and all that. I like to think of myself as a one-woman Titanic band, if the Titanic band had sobbed hysterically while nonetheless sticking to their guns by going down with the ship. And so what does the one-woman Titanic band do?

She signs up to serve at the parish brunch. I figured I would have a purpose, and I could make small talk but would also not be weird for being quiet. And, best of all, I’d have something to do with my hands. THIS would be my social in, I declared.

When I walked in to serve brunch and discovered my role for the morning, I am convinced that Satan and Hitler were sitting on a couch somewhere in Hell, having a fantastic laugh about it. Hitler actually laughed so hard that he snorted, got really embarrassed, and had to tell Satan to stop making fun of him. See, I had been placed in the position of “kitchen runner.” That is, I had to stand awkwardly (well, the awkwardly part was optional, but I like to go big in all my roles) to the side and watch other people serve other people. Should any buffet server run out of food—which, I must stress, did not happen—I was to go to the kitchen to bring more out. But mostly I was to just stand awkwardly to the side.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re uncomfortable and have nothing to do with your hands you suddenly turn into an octopus? It’s like all of you is just a blob of hands, knocking into things, touching your face, shaking violently. It seemed like every time I tried to casually ignore one of my hands it would suddenly become five hands, and if any of those new hands were ignored they would then turn into even more hands. Hands everywhere, but what do I do with them?

This pretty much sums it up.

I tried standing by the silverware station with my hands in my apron pockets, but there were two problems. The apron pockets were in a quasi-vulgar place, and also a parishioner thanked me for my work. Having done literally nothing to enable the fine buffet spread besides putting on an apron, this was more than I could bear. I figured I could reject the gratitude and explain that everyone else had done the work, but it seemed like I would waste too much of her time in explaining that this was not false modesty but simple accuracy. After all, she just wanted to say a quick thanks before shuffling away to eat her breakfast—she wasn’t asking for insight into my social anxiety. So instead I died a little inside and said, “You’re welcome. Enjoy!”

I figured I could just do this to anyone who said thank you, but my hopes were dashed against the rocks when I met the eyes of the 8 year old standing between me and her mom, who  (lucky bitch) was assigned to serve the scrambled eggs. I swear this 8 year old girl in a sunflower-patterned sundress could see into my soul as her eyes seemed to sentence me to Hell with a, “YOU DID NOT DESERVE THAT THANK YOU!” For all I know she didn’t even hear the thank you exchange and was just appalled by how ugly I am, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

Absolutely terrified of what this 8 year old girl with flowers in her hair would do to me, I swapped my creepy lurking by the silverware table for falsely purposeful surveying. I floated around the parish hall, pretending to do mental calculations of how much orange juice we had left (enough), patrolling around like a soldier visually verifying that every table had a pitcher of water (they did), and, perhaps most stupidly, putting on an official census worker-like air to ask the buffet servers if they needed anything (they didn’t).

Still though, I wasn’t as bad as the Brunch Nazi. She was in charge of ensuring the smooth running of the parish brunch, and she clearly thought the day was the culmination of her life’s work and existence. Indeed, she was called by God to manage THIS particular brunch, which I guess to her turns every scone we are short of into one concrete slab in the sidewalk to Hell. Someone served an old lady about 30 seconds before Parish Brunch Go Time, and Brunch Nazi reacted as though someone intentionally shat in her jacuzzi.

She also used the word “need” more often than I use the word “just.” Just about every sentence took the form of “I need you to do X” or “We need to do Y” or “You need Z.” And you could tell that she really meant the NEED, you could hear the urgent desperation in her voice every time she opened her mouth. The “need” seemed to suggest a WE WILL DIE IF THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. I found this amusing because, actually, we don’t need to do any of this. We could actually just say screw it to all of this and go back to bed. But instead we got “I NEED Hallie to serve this much potatoes. I NEED you to go to the kitchen to ask them about this. We NEED , We NEED, We NEED, You NEED, I NEED.”

Lady, you know what I need?  I NEED you to calm the eff down. You’re like my dog  when the mailman comes, and you know what we give to my dog? Prozac. You should look into it. Because you know what happens when the parish brunch is running a little short on scrambled eggs?

Everyone dies.

Oh wait, no, that’s what happens when there’s a nuclear holocaust. Sorry, I meant to say that some people don’t get scrambled eggs. And if having to suffer through scones, potatoes, ham, and unlimited coffee and juice without scrambled eggs at the parish brunch is enough to make someone abandon Christianity and join some kind of pagan cult, then so be it. They’re probably better off there than here anyway.

The Church of the Holy Dodger Dog

As I sat in Dodger Stadium, watching thousands of people stream onto the outfield to “recommit themselves to Christ,” it suddenly occurred to me that this was an ideal moment to get up and get myself a Dodger Dog. The concession lines would probably be empty, because for the first time in about three hours those in the stands were forced to choose between getting a third helping of nachos and getting born again.

I know for a fact I wasn’t the only one thinking about food at the moment. The second I entered Dodger Stadium the first thing I noticed was a sea of people carrying what looked like shipping containers filled with nachos to their families. Once I sat down, after wading through puddles of peanut shells, I noticed that everyone around me had a crate of hotdogs in their laps. As I looked around half expecting to find a man shouting that he has Cracker Jacks for sale, I noticed the pile of peanut shells rapidly growing into a flood of Noachian proportions.

Still though, even though the worshippers were eating enough food to feed a sizeable nation, I was willing to give religion at Dodger Stadium a chance. Truth be told, I couldn’t help fantasizing what it would have been like if I had showed up with a baseball glove and a Dodger t-shirt, wandering around the stands looking really confused. Would there be a seventh inning stretch? But, really, I gave it a shot.  I laughed off the fact that we were bouncing a beach ball around the stands, and I brushed off the fact that one Christian lady cussed out her fellow Christians for dropping the ball when it came to continuing The Wave.

But then came the prayer. Some pastor took to the stage to lead some generic “just” prayer, and the stadium reverently bowed its heads. At this point I noticed that, yes, people had bowed their heads. But some, and a fair few, continued to stuff food in their mouths…while keeping their heads bowed in prayer.

How do you pray and eat at the same time? Am I just spectacularly uncoordinated that I think this would prove difficult? If nothing else it seems disrespectful. “Dear Lord, SNARF we just want to GARRR thank you for just GULP giving us today and just HAAMMM just making us URGH all that we just are….”

Looking around at people bowing their heads and closing their eyes in reverence while shoveling Dodger Dogs into their mouths was perhaps the highlight of my life. It was at this point that I started laughing so hard that I cried.

These are the things I missed this past year in the English Anglo-Catholic world. And how would this year have been different? I imagined a world of seminarians eating nachos while kneeling in prayer. Of half a congregation getting up during the middle of the Creed in Latin to go get another suitcase-sized bag of peanuts. Or of choral evensong in St. Paul’s being interrupted by a fat man in a t-shirt letting out an echoing hearty belch fueled by gallons of non-alcoholic beer.

But no. it could never happen in England, and not just the non-alcoholic beer part. This Church at Dodger Stadium is such an American expression of Church—not the fact that it’s a megachurch, not the greasy charisma, not the red/white/blue color scheme, not the jokes about other people’s bad hygiene, but the FOOD.

And you know what, America? This is why we are all fat.  This is a sign of the end times—Americans who bother coming to “church” cannot put their hot dogs or frozen lemonades down for the one minute it takes to say a prayer.

Aw crap though. Now my next visit to a “normal” church is going to feel sorely lacking in Dodger Dogs.

This one time I almost died in St Pancras

Okay, so the title might be a bit of an exaggeration. Let's back up a bit.

I took refuge in St Pancras.

Okay, again, a bit of an exaggeration. Basically I'd been walking around London for far too long, saw a church, and thought, "Ah, there's a place for a good sit." Because, and I think this is something people of all creeds can agree on, churches are great places for sitting. And, as an added bonus, sometimes they even have toilets.

Maybe that's why American tourists seem to always flock to churches in Europe. No, it's not our religiosity or our interest in European ecclesiastical history or even a penchant for fine architecture--it's just that we are a people used to having far more public toilets around. People frequently ask me, because apparently I'm the only American they've ever seen, what my biggest source of culture shock is. Can I finally admit it? Quite honestly I'm shocked by the lack of toilets. I'm not talking about in touristy areas, I'm talking about "real people" areas.

Anyway, you shouldn't have let me get onto the topic of toilets, because actually there's something else I really wanted to talk about.

So... I wandered into St Pancras. It had the feel of a hotel lobby, complete with some unseen person whose piano tinkerings gave me flashbacks to a childhood spent sitting in hotel lobbies around the world, waiting for that travel agent who went on family vacations with us (I seem to remember my brothers addressing her as "Mom") to come back from her tour of the luxury suites.

And then I saw the pews.

Box pews!!!!

The last time I saw pews like this I was a small child on a family vacation to New England. I remember standing in a church somewhere in Boston and seeing these boxes that families would sit in, and being in absolute awe. The height of the box, the size of the door, and the fact that a family would be shut into a box, all reminded me of a roller coaster car. At age nine, just as I was doing now at age 24, I imagined WASPs dressed in their Sunday best, throwing their hands in the air and screaming with fear and excitement as their pew went around a loop and into a corkscrew.

Well, 24 year old me couldn't help herself from living nine year old me's fantasy. I looked both ways (only a man on a piano and a woman praying in the corner) before dashing across the aisle to a particular pew that seemed to be waiting for me. Like a giddy idiot I slid into the pew and closed the door with a satisfying CLICK.

For a while I didn't even realize that I had violated some rule that probably got deleted from an early draft of the Chronicles of Narnia, something about not shutting pew doors shut unless you are absolutely certain how to open them back up. Instead I sat there imagining that I was on the roller coaster at the pier back home. Does that one even have doors? Who the hell cares. All I know is that I sat in this pew, trying to lean from side to side pretending to be on a roller coaster as quietly as possible so as not to disturb people in the church doing actual church things. I figured throwing my hands up and screaming, "WOOOOO!" would probably be frowned upon, so I made do with swaying slowly enough that the creaks of the wooden pew were hardly audible.

After a while I decided it was time for me to grow up and head out to the British Library, so I gathered my things together, pushed the pew door open, exited, and walked along the road.

Oh wait, no. That's not what happened.

Instead, I pushed on the pew door and absolutely nothing happened. I paused for about five seconds, hoping that in that time the pew door would sort itself out, and then I pushed again. Nothing. Again. Nope, still locked. Again? Nope. Nope. Nope. A horrifying realization then dawned on me, namely that I had no idea how to open the stall I had locked myself into. Basically my roller coaster fantasy had come to full fruition, and now I would have to wait for the ride operator to come release me. Except churches don't have ride operators.

At this point I let out a sigh and thought to myself, "Well, this is where I die." Because, let's face it, starving to death locked in a church pew is the preferable option to asking a priest/pastoral assistant/verger/parishioner/passing bishop to release me, an idiot who was pretending to be on a roller coaster in a church. I mean, there are worse ways to go. Just trying to look on the bright side here.

I briefly considered vaulting over the wall and hoping the man on the piano and the praying woman didn't see. Would I get arrested? Then again, is vaulting over a pew wall even an arrestable offence? Can the Church arrest people? Oh man, this is what happens when you let Jews into churches...we accidentally lock ourselves in.

Then I thought about hulking out of the pew. I've [accidentally] hulked out of a t-shirt before. Once. Could I do it with wood, too? Well, it was certainly worth a shot. I tried to think of things that pissed me off, and thoughts of the RE GCSE exam flooded my mind. I AM SO ANGRY ABOUT TEACHING TO THE EXAM...........................BUT WHY AM I NOT TURNING GREEN AND ENORMOUS???

Aw crap. Looks like I don't have the ability to hulk out of things at will. A disappointing discovery...

For a brief moment I looked down at my left hand, resting next to me on the bench. Just beyond the chewed nails and the faded notes to myself I caught sight of a little button. Now I was ready to cross over to the other side. I pushed the button and I was liberated!

I left St Pancras a changed woman. A woman who now realizes that even the hideous stack chairs at St Paul's Cathedral that look like something from a high school multi-purpose room, even these have hidden beauty and benefits. Specifically that they will not try to hold you hostage.

The Methodists, Part 2

So I went back to the Methodists today. You may remember that the last time I was there I was surrounded by old women who seemed to be under the impression that failing to throw themselves upon me would cause the universe to implode.

I figured I could use this nice break from my traditional stomping grounds in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, though I was slightly disappointed that the lack of incense exposure today would require me to take a shower. (Oh my God, that is such an attempt at a joke. I know I’m vile but I’ll have you know that I do wash biannually.)

And so, after wading through a sea of people eager to shake my hands and talk to me about the fact that it’s wet and windy outside, I finally made it to my seat. I swear to you I had the same conversation six different times. It went a bit like this:

Extremely Earnest Methodist: “Hello, are you a visitor?”

Me: “Yup, I am!”

EEM: “Ah, well done for braving the weather!”

Me: “Ah, well, I don’t live too far from here, to be fair…”

EEM: “It’s quite cold out!”

Me: “Yes, it is, but it’s thankfully very warm in here.”

EEM: “Yes, we have a timed heater! See, we set it for a few hours before church and then…[*insert detailed exploration of the heater’s workings, thoughts and feelings.*]”

Me: “Um…gosh…it sounds like a pretty amazing heater.”

EEM: “Oh it is! Oh hi, [*Fellow Extremely Earnest Methodist who has approached*], I was just telling this young lady about our heater!”

FEEMwha: “Oh yes, it’s set to a timer, you know!”

I promise you I had this conversation about six different times, to the point where I’m  strongly convinced that Methodists are not actually a religious group but instead the love children of an affair between John Wesley and a furnace.

But they are lovely people. Or lovely people-furnace hybrids.

So anyway, I sat down in one of the chairs and waited for the service to begin. And before the service they have someone playing on the piano some hymns that sound a bit like what the piano player at Nordstrom always sounds like. It’s like all the soul is sucked out of the song, as the notes echo around the escalator atrium and bounce off the fake marble.

I can’t do a good job of explaining it. All I know is that when I heard the Methodist hymn piano I wanted to buy clothing. Or rather, as I normally do in Nordstrom, I wanted to make grumpy huffing noises as my mom drags me around and—can you believe how awful this is—actually tries to buy me nice things. (If my mom is reading this: I love you, Mommy!!!)

Right. So the piano. It was playing “How Great Thou Art”

 I love the song, but now instead of getting my Methodist thang on, I was imagining Fat Elvis walking around Nordstrom asking saleswomen if this rhinestone jumpsuit comes in any larger sizes, and then inevitably being told by some severe-looking foreign woman who works there that he might have better luck on Nordstrom.com.

I sat in my seat, waiting for the service to begin, as the Methodists continued to chat with each other and occasionally give me heart palpitations by approaching me (“Oh God Oh God I don’t know if I can act excited about the timed heater for a seventh time!!!!”). But then I heard this weird noise. It sounded like Beaker from the Muppets. What the eff is that?

After a few squeaks the sound petered out. Maybe it was the timed heater? But then it came back again. Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute. The squeaking is squealing along in time with the music. It is wordlessly quacking along to “How Great Thou Art.” Oh my God. There is a woman who looks older than Yoda sitting a few seats away and she is scat-ing along with the music, singing what can only be transcribed as “neener neener neener.”

Eventually they stopped talking about the heater for long enough to start the service, and we got to sing some hymns. And for some reason that is completely beyond me, the singing sounded really deep and low. I would have had a sneaking suspicion that the minister may have been Johnny Cash, but Johnny Cash sounded like a soprano compared to this guy. There were only a couple of other men in the congregation, but they too had terrifyingly low voices. Though the congregation was overwhelmingly populated by old woman who sang like a chorus of Beakers and sang earnestly (as that’s how Methodists do everything), for some reason the singing sounded like a low dirge.

It really was terrifying. It was like a new dimension had opened up. Oh my God. We are all going to die. I am surrounded by old women but for some reason our singing sounds like a Roman slave galley filled with beefy men from Gaul.

Thankfully though, we didn’t die. I made it off the slave galley, and even got invited to coffee afterwards.

I have nothing to say to really end this, so I’ll just say that I’ve also felt a bit low lately and a bit like Fat Elvis. And this blog post has made me think of Elvis. So in honor of that, I bring you VIVA FAT ELVIS:

The Methodists Effing Love Me

So this is not to insult any Methodists I may know and love, but the Methodist service I experienced this morning was quite possibly the most somber and awful hour of my life—which was then followed by the most socially intense and terrifying 15 minutes of my life.

THE HYMNS
To start, I didn’t get the memo that only Grandma and her bridge partners attend the 10:30 a.m. service, giving me such a level of self-consciousness that I actually found myself starting to pray to instantaneously develop wrinkles. What I did find delightful/depressing though was that, as an older crowd, they didn’t immediately stand up for the hymns. For each hymn the leader would say, “Please stand for Hymn ____” and then there’d be like an hour or so where everyone would contemplate how to get away with not actually standing, and finally (about halfway through the hymn) they’d realize that they had no choice but to just stand for the damn thing. Their general sentiment was one of “Aw eff, gimme a minute…,” the same feeling of defeat that requires people to make two attempts at getting off the couch.

Then there was the issue of hymn choice. As soon as I had arrived and opened their book of hymns, I got really excited that they had “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” That’s the first thing I do in any church, and I immediately judge any church whose hymnbook doesn’t have it—I recognize that this is completely irrational and also that as a Jew I have no right to dictate what makes a good hymnal, but this doesn’t stop me from judging up a storm whenever I come into a church.

Anyway, I thought any church that has “Come Thou Fount” can’t be half bad. But then instead of the glory of “Come Thou Fount” they chose to sing “Rejoice in the Lord,” which I would describe as a cheerful funeral dirge. Hell, even “Come Thou Fount” aside, the hymn right above “Rejoice in the Lord” in the book was the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which is undoubtedly the most epic song—religious or otherwise—EVER. And to confess something embarrassing, sometimes I like to sing it to myself when I’m feeling particularly smug and self-righteous about something I’ve just done. So my question here is, WHY WOULD YOU CHOOSE THIS PILE OF SHIT WHEN THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC IS RIGHT ABOVE IT? It’s just racist is what it is.

No, instead of badass war songs about how God is trampling shit we had to sing the sort of crap we used to have to sing at elementary school concerts, accompanied by the muzak-y Nordstrom’s piano. I felt that same sense of “Fuuuuuuck, this song is so shit it almost isn’t even worth the math lesson I get to miss to perform it.”

THE PASTOR
All I know is that this lady seemed to be pissed off about something. The sermon wasn’t a sermon, it was a scolding from my mom. If my mom were Scottish. And if my mom were in any way capable of being stern and awful, for that matter. See, it wasn’t even a sermon about how we should all be better people, which would at least make her chastising tone at least a little understandable. No, it was basically Mom standing there with her arms crossed, saying in a stern, angry and disappointed voice, “So Jesus is going to return in all his glory and I want you all to sit and just think about what you’ve done.” “Once in Heaven we will all know perfect peace with God and you should be ashamed of yourself, young lady.” “Nothing comes close to the joy we will feel at the return of Jesus and I am severely disappointed in you, I really expected better from you.

Just to emphasize how incredibly ashamed of itself the congregation should be, the pastor littered her speech with pregnant pauses. Like, literally pregnant, as in they would last for nine months. They lasted so long that there were several moments where I thought maybe the meeting had devolved into a Quaker meeting, and then I’d very suddenly be startled back into reality when this crazy bitch remembered to continue with her train of thought.
Damn, that’s some good sermoning.

THE CONGREGATION
I did find the people to be delightful. I particularly liked the woman sitting next to me, who would respond with an enthusiastic “YES” whenever she agreed with something someone had said. Which, being a Methodist in a room filled with Methodists saying Methodisty things, happened quite frequently. I wish I could have seen how she responds when someone says something she disagrees with. Does she give it a “NO” or does she go for the more emphatic “FALSE”?

My God though, I think Methodists are too friendly.
So friendly were these Methodists that at the end of the service I felt like Simba in the Lion King when he’s caught up in that stampede of wildebeests as this horde of Methodists descended upon me. After tackling each other and breaking hips in their desperate rush to shake my hand, the herd of grandmas would then tell me EVERYTHING THAT IS GOING ON IN THE CHURCH EVER. I thought I had nearly escaped, but as I started to pull the exit open an old man literally blocked my path so that he could speak to me. And as he spoke to me yet another receiving line of eager Methodists formed, and I was once again welcomed and told of EVERYTHING THAT IS GOING ON IN THE CHURCH EVER.

So friendly were these Methodists that I’m pretty convinced that, should I ever return to this church, everyone will immediately throw themselves to lie prostrate on the floor as they offer up prayers of thanksgiving to God for my return. The congregation will weep tears of joy, and once they’ve blown their noses they will start planning a parade in my honor. The level of excitement for my Second Coming will match or maybe even exceed their excitement for Christ’s.

So friendly were these Methodists that I considered staying for coffee, simply because I thought my slipping out before fellowship coffee might actually cause some of them to commit suicide with Dido-like levels of flamboyance. Gosh though, never thought I’d miss the days of unfriendly and unwelcoming cliques at Hillel Shabbat services…

I think I'm too immature to get to Heaven.

Well, the good news is that I did finally venture out of the library. This morning your favorite (yeah, I said it. What of it?) field anthropologist ended up attending mass, and in terms of having a meaningful experience I think I would have to call it an indisputable failure. And, as always, that was my own damn fault. True, it wasn’t as bad as the time I spent almost all of a Quaker meeting thinking about what would happen if someone were to fart (would they just stand up and claim it as divine inspiration?), but it wasn’t much better.

Usually when I venture into mass or any other service I tend to use it as an opportunity for a nice think, since I’m not much of a participant. Sometimes it turns into a great experience, as if it’s meditation for stuffy Republicans like me, but other times…like today…it’s basically an hour of me trying to block out inappropriate thoughts. And no, you filthy perverts, when I say “inappropriate thoughts” I don’t mean vulgar mental images. Today “inappropriate thoughts” means, “What is the worst song I could possibly start belting right now in the middle of mass?”

This is my version of a Koan, I guess.

Think about it. You are in a large church, surrounded by priests, people training for the priesthood, and the saintly people they know and love. It’s an incredibly important service, there’s a sacrament in it and everything, and my God is there a lot of solemn kneeling in prayer. You’ve given it a lot of thought and you’ve concluded that you’ll probably only be able to get a few bars in before one of the acolytes tackles you into submission—so which song is it? Which song is the most hideously inappropriate thing you could possibly imagine belting during the middle of mass?

What got me thinking about this was all the special clothing they put on for services. Observing the cassock and cotta-fest that is mass made me think of muumuus. Thinking of muumuus made me think of fat ladies. Thinking of fat ladies made me think of the busty black women who sing, “It’s Raining Men.” Which, obviously, gave me the urge to stand on top of my chair and start belting “It’s Raining Men.”

As soon as I became conscious of that thought I conceded defeat. Trying to have a proper think during today’s mass would be an exercise in futility, so I might as well devote the next hour or so to coming up with an even worse thought than singing “It’s Raining Men” instead of “Agnus Dei.”

I decided that “It’s Raining Men” clearly wasn’t beaten by such favorites as Tom Jones’ “Sex Bomb” or Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” but it was definitively trumped by anything produced by the Village People, particularly the YMCA. (Though, once the fog machine that is the thurible really gets going, what is the church if not a massive and cheesy bar mitzvah? Get some cheap DJ lighting in there to play on the fog and you got yourself a Jewish rite of passage.)

The ready-made ridiculous dance moves (and I don’t just mean the wacky arm movements—yes, I mean the embarrassing pelvic thrusting, too) that come with the territory made the YMCA a strong candidate, but thinking about bar mitzvahs made me consider the potential of music from other faiths. The obvious choice was the Islamic call to prayer, but that seemed less ridiculous and more dickish. Simply drowning out one statement of faith with another would be turning a bit of fantasy into a bit of jihad, and that just ain’t my style.  

What about the song “Chai”? 

We had to learn how to dance to this travesty in religious school. I have to imagine that Israeli dancing is probably the most offensive thing you could possibly do in a church; not because it’s offensive to the church in particular, but just because Israeli dancing is simply offensive in all contexts. I should probably provide full disclosure though: the fact that my uncoordinated ass was forced to dance in circles as a crucial part of my religious education from the age of 3 until I was 12 might have something to do with my dislike of Israeli dance. So maybe singing and dancing to “Chai” in the middle of mass is not objectively all that awful, when compared with the option of the YMCA.

But I don’t want to rule out all faith-related musical inappropriateness. Although, to be honest, the worst thing you could possibly sing in the middle of a mass in a high church setting probably comes from the Christian tradition itself:

“Religious Services: Come for the farts, stay for the God.”

Warning: it’s another immature one.

After the unrivalled success of “High School Graduation Bingo, 2006 Edition” (I got to call out “Bingo!” after hearing, for example, the words “journey,” “spread your wings,” “look to your left,” and a joke about doing laundry very poorly at college), I’ve decided to create a new version of Bingo for farts during religious services.

Obviously you’ll be wantin’ some instructions on how to play Church Fart Bingo: The way it’d work is that any time a participant went church surfing or synagogue chasing they’d bring their Bingo card with them. On it would be different services you could go to: mass, evensong, shacharit, maariv, kol nidre, Rosh Hashanah morning (1st day), Quaker meeting, zen meditation, etc. And then you’d just play the waiting game. Because, if you go to church/synagogue as often as I do, you’ll end up hearing enough farts to get Bingo eventually. And then, no matter if the cantor is in the middle of wailing away in Hebrew about how different people are going to die this year or if the priest is in the middle of turning wine into the blood of Christ, you would be LEGALLY OBLIGATED to scream out at the top of your lungs, “BINGOOOOO!”

So the reason I bring this up is that tonight I ended up at Kol Nidre. Partly because I’m training to teach religion and need to keep up with how different people are praying, partly because I still sometimes feel as though if I don’t go to services on Yom Kippur I’m going to get smote/smited/whatever the word is, and partly because I was missing some old, dear friends. I thought going to Kol Nidre would be a nice way to recall fond memories of getting the inappropriate giggles with friends during Yamei Kippur past, when someone farted during the morning service, when the old professor acting as cantor had a peculiar voice that a friend spent the following years imitating at completely random intervals, or when the cantor went ridiculously slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-owly and caused the fast to drag on for even longer than necessary.

Hearing all that Hebrew and hearing the familiar tunes made me think of old friends in LA, Chicago and Jerusalem, and I’ll completely unashamedly admit that my eyes started tearing up. It’s rather embarrassing to do this during Kol Nidre, because I’m sure crying while you’re begging God for forgiveness in Hebrew can only look to your neighbors as though you did something well and truly fucked up this year that needs some serious atoning for. I imagine neighbors would be thinking, “Bitch, you clearly need to prostrate yourself.” Not really in the mood for a hearty helping of homesickness, I started to regret coming to the service, repeatedly asking myself, “What the hell were you thinking when you came?”


And then someone in my row ripped a substantial fart.


Stifling a quick giggle, I brushed it off as just a squeaky chair or a shoe noise. But then an unmistakable odor filled the air and confirmed my suspicions. And, dear readers, surely at this point in our relationship you can correctly predict my immensely mature reaction. Yes, the correct answer is indeed a solid 20 minutes of silent giggles, tears streaming down my face, a lobster-red face, and my entire body shaking like I was having some kind of a seizure.

Being trapped in a crowded Yom Kippur service with the severe people of England only made my struggle worse, as my brain kept trying to convince my sense of humor that we needed to behave ourselves. It’s supposed to be the most serious night of the year and I’m laughing about flatulence. Typical Sam, I’m afraid.

I calmed down for a minute, but then reflected on the number of religious services I’ve been to in which a member of the congregation audibly cheesed. After realizing that the number is actually appallingly high, and that the Jews have (according to empirical data that I have compiled) been the worst offenders, I completely lost it again and was back to silently shaking with giggles. With these kinds of stats I feel like I should pass Tums around at religious services, though maybe I’ll wait to see what patterns emerge on the graphs before deciding on a course of action.

But I promise I do have a point in sharing my story of someone farting during Kol Nidre. See, this is what I love about my life. At the very moment when I was feeling my lowest, like I made a huge mistake, like everything was now totally shit…at that very moment what I think is the single funniest thing in the world that could possibly happen ACTUALLY HAPPENED. If that’s not unquestionable proof that God exists and is a loving god, I don’t know what is.

Aw crap though, I’ve started using farts as proof of God’s existence. What would Anselm say?

Remember thou art in England

Last night I partied chez the evangelicals. And when I say “partied” I really mean prayed. And when I say “prayed” I actually mean I just stood there, perhaps in a salute to my stern Presbyterian roots, with my lips sealed and my hands firmly stuck in my pockets.

That’s not to say I didn’t have fun. Oh God no, I had the time of my lameass life. What I enjoyed so much is that it was completely unexpected. I mean, when I imagine the Church of England—even “evangelical” C of E—I imagine people in suits, women’s hats that seem to do their own interpretive dances, and a bunch of stiff people with posh accents saying, “Hallo.” You know, Queen Victoria, cricket, tuna and baked potatoes, and all that.

What I found at St Aldate’s, however, was a rock band, TV screens, and a crowd of people with their hands in the air. Old people were rockin out all over the places, and this one enormous gentleman who looked like Jeremy Clarkson only put his arms down once when he was very suddenly called by the Holy Spirit to rush off to the bathroom. To be honest, it was like being back at a miniature version of Willow Creek, my preferred megachurch back in the US. They had the same free-form prayers where every other word was “just” (“We’re just gonna take it down just a notch here and just pray, to just let Jesus know that we’re just thrilled that He could just be here tonight and just lead us to just know Him. Yeah, really just to know just how great He is.”), the live muzak during prayer intervals, the ubiquitous Australian teaching pastor who always seems on the verge of tears when he teaches, and the insanely hot member of the worship band—there’s always one.

The whole experience made me think of Roman triumphs, where the victorious general followed by a slave who has the job of being the dickhead who holds a wreath over the general’s head and reminds him, “Remember thou art mortal.” I just kept thinking that I need a dickhead like that to remind me, “Remember thou art in England.” Because I honestly didn’t believe it. Until last night it did not occur to me that actual, honest-to-goodness English people prayed like this. No, I kept telling myself, I am back in America. This is how Americans pray, not English people. The upside of all this is that I now know where to go when I’m feeling homesick.

Other than my initial shock at finding out that there are some English people (and a fair few!) who do enjoy rocking out while they pray, the service wasn’t all that different or weird from what I’ve seen before. Well, there was a sort of weird half an hour where I was convinced the guy giving the sermon had an Amish accent. I kept wracking my brain trying to figure out just how the hell an Amish guy ended up here and praying this way. Like, my family’s religious journey has been a weird one, but I think shaving off your chin beard and swapping your horse and buggy for a car kind of trumps everything…and then I realized that the guy was probably just from one of those Germanic or Scandinavian countries. But it was a lot more magical when I thought he was Amish.

Another thing that I love about this church, and about all evangelical churches really, is that they are constantly trying to pray for you. I mean, try getting evangelicals to NOT pray for you—Jesus Christ, there’s a miracle waiting to happen. All other churches you have to specifically ask for people to pray for you, which can often be really intimidating, but with evangelicals you have to beat them off with a stick if you don’t want them praying/preying on you. Evangelicals are kind of like benevolent zombies, lurching forward with their praying arms outstretched, groaning “Can we just pray for you?” instead of “BRAAAAAAAIIIINSSSS.”

Ah, it’s just so fabulous though. Knowing there’s a mini megachurch in my town, suddenly I feel a lot more enthusiastic about this year.

The Cosmic Couch

I’m writing this entry between pub trips. I’m not going to go on and on about the pub issue and how English people seem to like pubs more than Americans like clogged arteries, but just be aware.

I’m also gonna go ahead and warn you that if you’re expecting this post to be a silly romp through farting in church or how the Brits all have snaggleteeth…well, you might want to skip this post and come back tomorrow for another installment of my immaturity. Because shit’s about to get real.

I also want to warn you, since I know at least a couple confirmed readers are Godosexuals, that this post is also potentially offensive (like everything I write/say). I’m probably the only self-described religious person who could use the words “God” and “fuck” in the same sentence, so please just be warned.

Henyways…

Because I’m studying religion and because I live in a seminary, it’s hard for me to not think about religion and to not think about prayer, The Bible, God, and all that on a pretty constant basis. Today for example I started daydreaming about the New Testament and came up with a little jokette about St Stephen and rain (“When it rains really hard does St Stephen look up and say, ‘I see the heavens opened’?”) And then I realized that I would probably be better off spending more time developing social skills rather than jokes about proto-martyrs. But, let’s face it, I’m probably going to keep trying to develop Bible jokes.

Yeah, religion on an academic level is a huge force in my life. But at the same time I find it deeply, deeply embarrassing to talk about my own personal beliefs. I’m fine talking about my positions on ethics, but when asked larger theological questions I try to switch the subject to Doctor Who. And it’s so weird because I am the honest and open sort of person who will publicly claim ownership of farts in polite company—some would argue that I have no verbal filter whatsoever. But for some reason faith is so difficult to talk about. And this blog post is probably as close as I'm ever going to get to sharing my thoughts on the subject.

So before I continue with all this heavy shit, we have to go back a bit. Yesterday in grad school we went on a field trip to yet another church, this time the town’s cathedral. As part of our educational experience the tour guide instructed us to lie down on the floor, right in the chancel, and stare up at the vaulted ceiling. And as he tried to describe to us how this ceiling would have looked before the Reformation, I was so overwhelmed that I even temporarily forgot the nuclear reaction occurring in my stomach (coffee allergies…). I mean, I liked the church before, but the church was hands-down inspiring from this perspective. Think about it: you’re out in the countryside and you look up and see a bunch of stars—okay, you think to yourself, that’s a lotta stars. But you’re out in the countryside and you lie down to look up at the stars—okay, now suddenly you appreciate just what an incredible place the universe is, and if there is a God (and at this moment you’ve never been more convinced in your life that there must be) He must be shitting his almighty pants every day over the beauty of the universe, because you’re already losing control over your bowels just looking at this tiny fraction of the universe. So that’s kind of what lying down in the cathedral was like.

I tried to recreate this feeling in one of my college’s chapels. So I sprawled out on the floor in my scruffy jeans that were well overdue for a wash, and I just had myself a staring contest with the Virgin Mary. Occasionally I glanced up at the ceiling, which is much plainer than the cathedral’s. And instead of the overwhelming feeling of beauty, I felt an overwhelming feeling of ownership.

What do I mean by that? I mean I can pray here, this is MY space. This isn’t a place I show up to once a week, having put on a stuffy sweater and nice shoes, and pretend to have a chat with God. No, sitting on the floor of this church, I OWN this place. Well, actually God owns this place, but God and I are such BFFs that I can just hang out on His floor. I don’t sit up straight on his upholstered chair that he reserves for guests while he stiffly and politely offers me a glass of water—no, I plop down on God’s cosmic couch and chill the fuck out.

If he has something to tell me, he’ll tell me when he feels like it, and if I wanna ask him something I’ll ask him when I feel like it. Just like dear friends whose friendship has moved onto that wonderful stage where they don’t feel they have to constantly interact to avoid awkward silence and chatter about nothing.

That’s kinda the relationship I’d like to have with God. I don’t want to sit in a pew, I want to chill out on God’s Cosmic Couch. And I recognize that this all makes me sound like a total weirdo. So let’s remember that I’m still me. I don’t want to sound like the youth pastor of some Vineyard church, trying to sound all hip and with it and failing miserably (“Hey, dudes, Jesus’ love is so rockstar!”). And, even worse, I don’t want to get overly kumbaya on your asses, because that’s also so not me.

So my only option is to relate it to bathroom humor, which we can all agree seems to be my comfort zone. So put it this way: lying down in church gives you the same feeling of ownership that peeing does for bathrooms. Yeah, I should probably explain that: Once on a road trip I remarked to my brother that I liked peeing in roadside bathrooms, because then “it’s like I live there.” Yeah, that explanation probably didn’t help… I guess it’s just a Me thing.

So lying down in a church is all about ownership, and the beauty of the universe on a large scale, and closeness with God, and, and, and, and and….

And it’s also just lying down in a church.

Flying Catholic Priests and "The List"

I think I might possibly be the most immature person in all of England. Well, not that that’s really saying all that much. I mean, take a look at this place, high school kids here dress more professionally than I do, and I think my 15 days in England so far have been the only 15 days of my life in which I haven’t heard the phrase, “That’s what she said!” …followed by an exchange of high fives. (And, on that note, I’ve had only a few high fives these past two weeks—and I’m pretty sure the few I’ve had were just done to humo(u)r the silly American.)

There was a moment today where I thought all this had changed, where I thought that finally the legendary English refinement had rubbed off on me and I was actually a proper adult now, no longer a small child in a 23-year-old’s body, constantly on the look-out for opportunities to tell a good fart joke. Or even a bad fart joke. I ain’t picky.

I’m talking, obviously, about the fact that today I met a Catholic priest and I was not tempted—-not even for a second—-to scream out, “YOU’RE NOT HAVING SEX!” And if you know me you know what a big deal this is. As someone who studies religion and who has met celibate members of a couple different religions, it’s something I used to always struggle with. I mean, the words have never actually escaped my lips (though I have planned a follow-up recovery sentence should I ever scream the first one: “Oops, sorry, I mean, it’s just—NOT EVER! NEVER EVER!”), but the fear of accidentally letting it slip one day used to always color my interactions with these people.

And please don’t think I’m picking on Catholics or Buddhists or Shakers or whoever—being a future RE teacher I am proud to announce that I have strange urges around people of ALL creeds. For example, whenever I’m in certain parts of Jerusalem (*COUGHMEAHSHEARIM*) it takes every ounce of my limited self-control NOT to run around naked and eat bacon.

Anyway, not having to fight the urge to loudly point out to this priest (in case he wasn’t aware) that he wasn’t having sex, I saw this as a sort of graduation into adulthood. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I am a goddess of serenity. I am not thinking about this man’s lack of a sex life. Therefore I am the mature equal of my English cousins.”

But then I realized that, while sitting in a chair in front of an altar, this priest’s legs did not reach the ground. They just sort of hung there, occasionally kicking about, like a small kid chilling out on a swing. No, it actually made him look like a fairy or pixie, or something. And once I realized this there was basically no point in him continuing his lecture on John Henry Newman, because how are you supposed to concentrate on JHN’s Oxford links when there is essentially a wood sprite sitting in front of you? I’m doing a terrible job of explaining this, and maybe even there isn’t a good way to explain it at all, but the fact that this guy’s feet weren’t touching the ground and were instead swinging around basically made me think that at any moment he was going to sprout wings and take flight, fluttering all over the Oratory like that terrifying Israeli cartoon from the 70’s I once saw—it wasn’t about priests flying around churches, but it was about creepy cartoon butterflies…so…it’s sort of the same thing. Thankfully I didn’t break down into the giggles that threatened to form, but I sat there with a glazed happy expression on my face, like I was high on incense or something.

Later on in the day, after I’d had time to shake off images of this priest zooming around the church on his fairy wings (and not having sex), we went off to another church. It was an old, gorgeous college chapel, you know, dead people in the floor and everything. All was going smoothly as, thankfully, this time the priest leading us around was Anglican, whose sex life was therefore wholly uninteresting to me. But unfortunately he commented on the “stillness” of the chapel. We all paused to take in the silence and the stillness…

…which, of course, made me think of The List.

If you’ve read this far you’re surely curious/masochistic enough to want to know what The List is. So I’ll tell you. Rewind a bit: I like to go church surfing. I like to go to different churches and see what they’re all about. Sure, I like to pay attention to the liturgy, and the music, and the sermon, and the architecture, and the congregation…but I also like to make a note of where this church ranks on my “The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregation.” It’s hard to explain why I do this, and to be honest I’m not really sure why I do. It’s not like I’m really planning on launching some kind of bio-terrorist attack in church, it’s more like the same sort of thing that inspires people to climb mountains. Just because.

To fill you in, The List of the Least Fart-Friendly Congregations is topped by the Evanston Society of Friends and is bottomed out by whichever charismatic church has the best sound system. So there I am in this historic college chapel, lead by a fantastic tour guide, and all I can think about is, “On a scale of one to horrific, how bad would it be if one were to fart here?” And I started smiling and giggling to myself when I concluded that this chapel was almost as discriminatory against farts as the Quakers.

And this is normal for me. I have a feeling that if I had mentioned this particular aspect of my church surfing adventures on my grad school application, expensive overseas tuition fees or not, nothing would have tempted those poor bastards into accepting me. (Whenever I make eye contact with my RE tutor the phrase “NO TAKE BACKSIES!” comes to mind.) And I just don’t get it. I don’t get how I could be so immature and giggly. I am a dedicated student, a chair in the library here is already intimately acquainted with my ass, and I genuinely want to know more. But then everything is just so fucking hilarious.

Part of me wants to ask God/Shiva/Richard Dawkins just what the hell is wrong with me. But then an even larger part of me is so thrilled that I wrongfully find everything to be so delightful that, well, I just don’t want to be right.